"For almost one hundred and fifty years after his death, James Boswell (1740-1795) was known chiefly as the author of one of the supreme achievements in biography, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)." "Then in the 1920s and '30s in Ireland and Scotland came discoveries of masses of his papers, including the copious personal journals he kept for most of his life, long thought to have been destroyed.".

"His journals reveal him as the rarest and most complex of human beings: a man of eternal boyhood, loved and admired for his geniality and high spirits, yet also mocked and chastened by people who could or would not understand him. His life traced violent conflicts and grotesque juxtapositions; he was a study in volatility, a loose cannon to be kept at arm's length, a "singular" man who could both endear and repel."--BOOK JACKET.